Locomotives assembled in Kazakhstan may soon be exported to Uzbekistan and Mongolia. Vice-president for Commercial Affairs Amangeldi Imanaliev told about the export plans of the enterprise. To date, 35 diesel locomotives have been exported to neighboring countries such as Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Azerbaijan and others, he said. The products are in good demand, because the plant has no equivalents in terms of quality in the post-Soviet space. This is achieved because of European equipment and high quality materials.
“A number of potential contracts are underway. We have actually increased our production capacity as we have potentially good projects. There are several countries we will be exporting to in the next few years. We also are currently participating in several tenders, so I think that the geography of our exports will expand,” Imanaliyev said.
It takes about 40 days to assemble one locomotive. The plant now produces about 100 diesel locomotives a year. This capacity will soon be increased, the plant workers say. They have set themselves an ambitious goal of completely renewing Kazakhstan’s locomotive fleet. And this may become possible in the near future.
“We are now in the active phase of renewing the passenger rail transport fleet. We produced only passenger locomotives in the second quarter of the year, and now, in the third quarter, we are also producing only them. If in the beginning it was more necessary to produce freight locomotives, now it is 50/50,” Imanaliyev added
The enterprise employs more than 600 plant workers. In addition to the main production, they also produce components for supply industries.
Translation by Assem Zhanmukhanova
Editing by Galiya Khassenkhanova
